CBN: Fed Govt recorded N89b deficit in November

The fiscal operations of the Federal Government resulted in an estimated deficit of N89.45 billion last November, a Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) Economic Report has shown. The report obtained by The Nation, said the Federal Government estimated retained revenue was N252.58 billion, while total estimated expenditure was N342.03 billion.

“The fiscal operations of the Federal Government resulted in an estimated deficit of N89.45 billion, compared with the provisional monthly budget deficit of N73.92 billion,” it said.

According to the apex bank, available data indicated a general increase in banks’ deposit and lending rates during the review month as the spread between the weighted average term deposit and maximum lending rates narrowed by 1.1 percentage point to 117.79 per cent.

It said the margin between the average savings deposit and maximum lending rates narrowed by 0.0.04 percentage point to 22.47 per cent at the end of the review month.

“The weighted average interbank call rate rose to 11.15 per cent from 11.08 per cent in the preceding month, reflecting the liquidity condition in the interbank funds market. Provisional data indicated that the value of money market assets outstanding at end-November 2013 was N6.6 trillion, indicating a decline of 2.01 per cent, in contrast to the increase of 0.3 per cent at the end of the preceding month,” it said.

The development was attributed, largely, to the decline of 3.4 and 0.32 per cent in Federal Government of Nigeria (FGN) Bonds and commercial Paper (CP) outstanding, respectively.

It said total federally-collected revenue (gross) stood at N744.02 billion. This, it said, was lower than the monthly budget estimate by 21.3 per cent, but an increase of 0.5 per cent over the receipt in the preceding month.

“Agricultural activities across the country were dominated by harvesting of tubers, fruits and vegetables in November 2013. In the livestock sub-sector, farmers were engaged in fattening and other husbandry activities in anticipation of end of the year sales. Crude oil production was estimated at 1.83 million barrels per day (mbd) or 54.90 million barrels during the month. The end-period inflation rate on a year-on-year basis, was 7.9 per cent, 0.1 percentage point above the level in the preceding month,” it said.

Foreign exchange inflow and outflow through the CBN were $3,125.45 million and $3,837.84 million, respectively, and resulted in a net outflow of $712.39 million.

Foreign exchange sales by the CBN to the authorised dealers amounted to $3.34 billion, showing an increase of 13.4 and 109.5 per cent over the levels in the preceding month and the corresponding month of 2012, respectively.

Also, the gross Federal Government revenues from petroleum stood at N521.28 billion, about 70.1 per cent of the total revenue. The report showed that earnings were lower than both the monthly budget estimate and the level in the preceding month by 19.1 and 1.0 per cent, respectively.

It said the fall in oil receipts was attributed, largely, to the shortfall in receipts from crude oil and gas exports in the review period. Also, non-oil receipts (gross), stood at N222.74 billion (29.9 per cent of the total).